Sri Lanka shows 4.2-pct unemployment rate for 2017

May 09, 2018 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s statistics office said that the estimated unemployment rate for 2017 has been 4.2 percent.

Unemployed persons are defined as persons who were not working and if they were looking for work, have taken actions to find a job and ready to accept a job given an opportunity during the next two weeks.

The working age for Sri Lanka is defined as age 15 years and above. The total working age population who are employed or unemployed during the reference week is identified as the economically active population or labour force.

The estimated economically active population is about 8.6 million in 2017, of which 63.4 percent are males and 36.6 percent are females.

Labour force population expressed as a percentage of the working age population (age 15 years and over) is the labour force participation rate (LFPR).

The survey results reveal that the overall LFPR for 2017 is 54.1 percent and this is 74.5 percent and 36.6 percent for males and females respectively.

Persons, who worked at least one hour during the reference period, as paid employees, employers, own account workers or contributing family workers are said to be employed.

The estimated employed population is about 8.2 million for 2017, of which, about 45.5 percent engaged in Services sector, 28.4 percent in Industry sector and 26.1 percent in Agriculture sector.

Accordingly the highest employment share is in Service sector and the lowest employment share is for Agriculture sector.

Also the survey reveals that 67.5 percent of the employed population works more than 40 hours per week.

Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (LFS) is designed to measure levels and trends of employment, unemployment and labour force in Sri Lanka. This survey has been conducted quarterly, since the first quarter of 1990.

LFS 2017 is the 37th year of the survey series. The Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) has released labour force statistics of 2017, based on a sample of 25,750 housing units.

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